A Modern Red Riding Hood (1935) Online

The Terrytoons are oddly interesting, mainly for anybody wanting to see (generally) older cartoons made by lesser known and lower-budget studios. They are a mixed bag in quality, with some better than others, often with outstanding music and with some mild amusement and charm and variable in animation, characterisation and content.

1935, like all the other years for Terrytoons, saw a hit and miss batch, more so than the other years even. Of which 'A Modern Red Riding Hood' is one of the better ones ranking it in correlation with the rest of the Terrytoons and one of the high middling 1935 cartoons. It is an unexceptional, but above average cartoon and has the same amount of problems and strengths that other Terrytoons have. 'A Modern Red Riding Hood' is worth watching as an above average watch with more to it than completest sake.

Best asset is the music, which predictably is incredible. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated and arranged, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. The ambitious, elaborate detail in the backgrounds is still great to see and some synchronisation is neat.

Some amusing moments and there is a lot of zest and natural charm. Also a suitably strange and absurdist quality that was fun and endearing to watch. The characters are lively and great fun to watch.

Outside of the backgrounds, the animation is primitive at best with a fair bit of crudeness, over-simplicity and choppiness.

Likewise, the story is paper thin and formulaic, once again executing an already fairly tired premise with nothing new. There are not always enough gags and they vary in effectiveness, a couple of stale ones here and with a sense that there was room for even more absurdity.

In summary, decent if unexceptional. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Anyone who looks at this 1935 black-and-white Terrytoon is going to compare it to RED HOT RIDING HOOD and sneer at this movie for not being Tex Avery's masterpiece. They would be wrong. Paul Terry was not Avery, nor did he have access to color.

What you do have is a fine, off-kilter handling of the matter from the viewpoint of a modern wolf being played by a couple of dames; Red is a jazz-age baby who takes the wolf's flowers and candy and locks the door. If the overt sexuality is absent, if Red here suggests Shirley Temple and not some Film Noir chanteuse, the intended audience for this cartoon was a kiddy matinée.

I'm not a great fan of Terrytoons, but this one is fine. Character design and animation is livelier than it had ever been and within five years, with color added, would be the standard for the studio.